Living The Convenient Life Has Its Drawbacks
by Does living a life of convenience really make us better people? Where is the wisdom to found in surfing through life, attempting to find short cuts, rather than developing more self-sufficiency? Progress is a good thing, but what happens when it robs of the simple things that contain the seeds of a more fruitful life?
I like to write about culture and life, but my greatest interest is in how culture develops, and the things that impact the way societies change. For example, the impact of technology on our society has been a long running interest of mine. This subject makes for great journal entry material, and opens many doors for any style of writing be it axe grinding, pontificating, or just plain analyzing. To finish the point (I think there is one) I’d like to say that technology has made our society function more proficiently on many fronts, yet it’s also helped to make many of us into spoiled, dependent, lazy couch potatoes.
It’s not enough to merely gripe and moan about these things, and heaven knows my journals are filled with a whole lot of cynical observations and complaints, but how do we really take our thoughts to heart and change things? In reality the things we change are within us, and not necessarily in society. I suppose if enough people make positive changes within, it can have a positive effect upon a society. I use the journal to constantly analyze what it is I am really trying to find in this life. All in all I think what I’m after is a more simple life on as many fronts as I can name. I do not crave a one room log cabin in the Montana wilderness, but merely a life that is not so dependent on forms of technology that robs me of the opportunity and pleasure of my own creativity.
Journal Entry —- September 30, 2004 :
This afternoon Vonnie and I went hiking on the mountainside, and we came across an old cemetery with a number of headstones for slaves. As we walked from stone to stone reading the names, prayers, and dates, there was a strange silence (almost eerie) and somber feeling magnified even more by the intense silence between Vonnie and I. I could tell her little mind was reflecting on it all. Afterwards
we sat up on a rocky ridge looking down on the cemetery when out of nowhere two land surveyors with GPS equipment, laptop computers, and obnoxiously loud Nextel two way radios bellowing out a distorted , fuzzy voice, “Charley can you see the property line stake?” All I could think of was that I can’t even escape this intrusive technology in the most remote part of the mountains. No place is sacred anymore, and it seems as though the almighty god of technology finds its way into places only to remind us that post-modern life has been reduced to the click of a mouse and the push of a button. Like Zebra Mussels and black mold, technology seems to find a way into everything. God help us!
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